I recently decided that fantasy football is unhealthy. After having one of the most dominant seasons ever seen in my keeper league, you would think that just making it to the Super Bowl would be a nice finish. Oh no. As a huge favorite going into the big game, I trailed by a mere 21 points going into the Eagles-Cowboys game with three active players remaining. Expecting an easy win, I watched the Cowboys play one of the worst games ever, and after a lot of yelling, kicking furniture, and freaking out the cats, I found my team up by two points at the end of the game. Pretty disgraceful. So much for keeping things in perspective...

Team

W-L-T

PCT

GB

Strk

Div

PF

Back

PA

Sienna Shorthairs

13-2-0

0.867

0

W5

9-1-0

1648.0

0

1231.0

The team that won 80% of the pot this year averaged 109.87 points per game. That is sick!

The mass transit experiment may be coming to an end soon. Could have just been the light holiday traffic, but last week I made it to work one morning in 45 minutes. Tolls, parking, and Metro card total about $90/month, and the average commute time each way is roughly 1:15. I'm glad I tried it out, but after three months, I think I should perhaps catch up on my extra reading at home...

I read the other day that the second season of Sleeper Cell (American Terror) premieres tomorrow night on Showtime. I can't quite justify subscribing to cable for one month ($40) just to watch it, but I was tempted for just a bit. Guess I'll have to wait a few more months to get it on DVD. Argh.

Metro still hasn't updated its web site with regard to the implementation of the Q card. Oddly, it seems the only place that this was made public was in a single article in the Houston Chronicle from Nov 10, 2006. Incidentally, its debut is expected in Feb 2006:

Feb. 4 is the starting date for the Metropolitan Transit Authority's new fares and a new way of paying them with "smart cards."

Chavez expected to win big today. When I moved back to Texas, I wasn't expecting much in the way of international coverage in the Houston Chronicle after becoming a regular reader of the New York Times. This article (by John Otis from the Chronicle's South America Bureau) really impressed me, however, and I have been meaning to bookmark it for a while.

Two centrist parties, Democratic Action and COPEI, dominated Venezuela for 40 years, trading off the presidency, divvying up government contracts and preventing newcomers from rising to power. Instead of development, Venezuela's "petrobonanza" - the country provides 11 percent of the oil imported by America - fueled government graft. And by the mid-1990s, the country had registered a huge economic decline.
[snip]

[Executive Director Americas Division for Human Rights Watch] Vivanco called it a "revealing double standard" that the Bush administration has focused almost exclusively on Chavez's shortcomings while, he said, democratic institutions in Colombia and Peru, whose leaders are U.S. allies, are also at risk.

Vivanco and others also say the United States lost credibility on democracy issues in Venezuela when some Bush administration officials initially cheered a 2002 military rebellion that ousted Chavez for two days.